New Mexico: That portion of the United States, set up so that Texans don't wander into Arizona when they get lost.

Two Texans were driving up North past Santa Fe, passing through little towns like Pojoaque, Tesuque and Abo. They were amused by the place names, and were talking about it at lunch. They finally went up to the counter and asked the guy: "Hey! How do you pronounce the name of this place?" The counter guy leaned over, and spoke very clearly and distinctly: "Lot-a-burger!"

New Mexico is the only State with an official State Question: "Red or green?" If you don't know the answer, you've never been here.

New Mexico has the most freeway interchanges per capita: one per every 1.7 milllion residents. New Mexico has the fewest freeway interchanges: one, and only one, which is why it's so hard to get through - nobody knows how.

There are more people in the city of San Antonio, Texas; than there are in the entire State of New Mexico. And now that I'm back, we can lock the gates.

Greg and I had a great time practicing this morning. Lift conditions varied from light and everywhere to turbulent and tight. My B3 and Akcent are shaping up well, And greg's planes are flying quite fine. Greg and I flew a little bit of man on man and evened up on that. And greg's launches are looking truly wonderful.

It was a really good morning at the Jornado field - thanks again, Mark!

It started soft, under an almost solid (but thin) overcast. I found thermals right away, but they were narrow and short. One flight was several minutes, non of it above launch height. About the time Mark showed up, things were breaking loose, but then the wind took over, and the air was fairly turbulent. But, there were pretty much always thermals somewhere, and we even found a few. The Principal of the Third Vector got a big workout, today.

Appreciation here for everyone attending Blue Skies over Colorado. We had seven pilots there, including two who made the fly off!

Congratulations to Everest Sewell with his best performance yet, placing third at a contest with 35 pilots, including some of the best in the world!

Congratulations also to Skyler Raver for great flying, making the flyoff and moving up to eighth place.
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I had moments from awful to pretty darn great. The best part was coming away feeling pretty good about my flying and new airplane, even though I tanked when my throw faded. That's what I get for not practicing like the rest of you. Maybe 3 weeks of practice before BSoNM will make a difference...

The BSoCO was fun, but I realized later that we should have called a halt at some point on Saturday.

ASK: how about this approach? If the temperature exceeds a certain amount, we halt for a break (that watermelon was hugely great!). If we have to halt too long, we postpone rounds until the temperature subsides. To compensate, we truncate fly-off rounds, not preliminary rounds.

10 rounds on Sat. was definitely grueling by the end, but I like that feeling of exhaustion, feels like a contest! Sunday was over too quickly IMO, wish we had done all 15 prelim rounds. The conditions were deteriorating during the flyoffs, but I think that any less than 4 rounds just isn't enough, especially when its basically a mini-contest.

The BSoCO was fun, but I realized later that we should have called a halt at some point on Saturday.

ASK: how about this approach? If the temperature exceeds a certain amount, we halt for a break (that watermelon was hugely great!). If we have to halt too long, we postpone rounds until the temperature subsides. To compensate, we truncate fly-off rounds, not preliminary rounds.

Just a suggestion - let the shouting begin!

Yours, Greg

The best answer, I think, is to scale and structure the event and the timing to the overall situation. Our CD (this time it's me) will be ready and able to do this. There are situations where dropping the time between rounds to 5 minutes make sense, or pushing the gaps to 10 minutes, and situations where a single or periodic pause is appropriate.

At the extremes, the range of conditions we might see covers 40 degrees of temperature, 0–9 m/sec wind (up to 20 mph), and brief unflyable higher winds, 0 to 100% cloud cover, no precipitation to occasional strong showers, no cumie building to cumulo-nimbus in varied forms, and even lightning. Fortunately we've got lots of experience dealing with all of these situations, and our contests are designed to accomodate and adjust to the variances.

I agree with those who thought in hindsight that BSoC Saturday was pushed a bit hard. It's not necessary to go this hard to have a good experience, regardless of skills, fitness, and age. Fortunately those pilots who were exceeding their ability to cope were gracious and accomodating about it.

On the other hand, I very much appreciate is how carefully RMSA and their contest staff are preparing for the team selection in September. Pushing that hard in the team selection, and across three days, makes great sense. At a Blue Skies event, we can take it just a little easier, and I'll be doing just that.

But I'm not planning to treat it like a fly-in. It's a hand launch event, and part of the fun is the challenge.

To close out with answering your question, at past contests hosted by the ASA, we've skipped a fly off when the situation called for it. It will probably happen again. But I hope we get to fly the whole task list.

Anybody notice that we're starting with 1-2-3-4 and AULD? I think these are great choices for our site at this time of year. Serious separation tasks right away, because the light soarable conditions in the early morning quickly give way to a discombobulated continous reorganization of lift. All the hot air "bubbles" will either half stick to the ground, or start releasing in competition with each other. Your good lift one minute is sucked out to another thermal, and if you aren't paying attention, you'll get caught!
Beware of 10 a.m....Mwah Ha Ha Ha!

ASK - I know I never joined the ASA, but if there is anything I can help with for BSONM just let me know. Shaping up to be in ABQ for sure, and super duper excited to fly a contest out at the Gardner field!

I will be bringing the list of tasks forward shortly to our active pilots, and we'll fill all the taskings we can from our group. The rest will come from our club and family members who are not flying.

It's important that we pilots take on as much as possible. For one, we know hand launch, and are the best people to run many parts of the event. For two, we are moving towards a greater distribution of tasks and away from the hero model of event running.

Indeed, I would like others in our group to perform the contest director and organizer roles in future years. I plan to remain active for the foreseeable future, but I know from years of experience that the best events are run by a team, not an individual.